Hi itsmechang-ga,
Online sales of apparel on on the increase in 2002. In the third
quarter of 2002, online sales of apparel and accessories totaled $1312
million. That represents a 22% increase in sales from last year and a
4% increase in sales since the 2nd quarter.
Shoppers Gearing Up for Season
http://cyberatlas.internet.com/markets/retailing/article/0,,6061_1494231,00.html#table1
I found a very interesting set of articles on the top 50 retailing
sites on the Web. It covers industries that have an online retailing
presence.
Internet Retailer's Best of the Web--The Top 50 Retailing Sites
http://www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=8131
"...The Top 50 sites run the gamut of retailers and sizes--from Target
and Amazon.com, big and broad, to Guild.com and Fortunoff, small and
focused. What they have in common is that they use the web in
innovative ways and the present models that others can learn from..."
One of the subgroups they analyzed is the specialty apparel and
accessory market. They describe the top 5 e-commerce sites for retail
fashion apparel. For the complete article, see the link below.
Specialty/Apparel and Accessories: An ensemble of approaches
http://www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=8138
To summarize, these characteristics make the top online retailers
stand out. They engage the customer in new and unique ways, provide
more inventory than a bricks and mortar store, provide specialty
products for which there's not a high enough demand to stock in a
regular store and gear their interface to their target market.
---Buckle.com---
Unique Visitors:100,000/month
"...engages shoppers by asking them to identify emerging trends and
say why they think that fashion trend will take hold. It then posts
the opinions along with an example from the Buckle inventory, if it
exists. It also links the web and the stores in interesting ways. One
of the most innovative is to award concert tickets to contest winners
online, then require that they pick up the tickets in stores..."
"...shoppers now can also send links to product images so their
friends can see what they're writing about..."
"...offers a search function that allows shoppers to search by style,
brand and price, and when searching for denim, also by fabric finish.
Shoppers can also browse by gender or brand or a combination of the
two. A Go Figure section for women offers tips on choosing clothes
that complement particular body types..."
---eBags---
Unique Visitors: 1-2 million/mo.
"...co-branding partnerships with DoubleTree Hotels and several major
airlines, have grown an average of 40% a month since it launched in
March 1999. After earning its first profits in the second and third
quarters of this year, the Denver-based company expects to set a
record in the fourth quarter due to holiday sales..."
"...EBags maintains traffic flow of 1 million to 2 million unique
visitors every month, depending on the season. Cobb attributes most of
the site's traffic and sales to its broad selection of brands such as
Samsonite, Jansport and Liz Claiborne--no brand accounts for more than
10% of sales, he says--along with its aggressive marketing. "There's
not a brick-and-mortar retailer that can offer the depth of selection
that eBags can," says Ken Cassar, senior analyst with Jupiter Research
Inc..."
"...eBags routinely researches the impact of different merchandising
techniques on buying behavior and profit margins by showing half of
visitors a site that includes new merchandising techniques, while the
other half sees the old version of the site. EBags executives then sit
back and watch which version is more effective. "We know how many
purchases were made on each site, the average order size and profit
margins," Cobb says. "Whichever one wins becomes the new site."..."
---Hanna Andersson---
Unique Visitors: 150,000/mo.
Sales: $27 million/yr.
"...With 150,000 unique visitors each month, HannaAndersson.com
accounts for about 40% of company sales of $67 million.
The company's online strategy is in perfect sync with its offline: it
sells all-cotton, durable clothes designed to be comfortable for all
ages and it dresses up its web site with images from the catalog of
parents and children in coordinated outfits. It's been a successful
strategy that resonates with its target market, says Phillip Bulebar,
vice president of marketing. "More than half of our customers repeat
within 12 months," he says. And those loyal customers pass the word
along: "A fair percentage of our new customers come through referrals
from existing customers," he says.
The web site also plays an important role in offering specialty
products, the primary example being school uniforms, which do not sell
in enough quantities to warrant space in the company's handful of
stores or in its catalogs.
HannaAndersson.com has been intentional in not creating too fancy a
web site--and that image fits with the simplicity of its products for
young children and families..."
"...Bulebar says HannaAnder-sson.com kept its pages simple to avoid
long downloads for customers without broadband Internet access. At the
same time, it has also found ways to make shopping easier, he adds.
For example, it recently launched a Baby Gift Ideas section that
groups products with a package price. "That makes it easy for the
customer to pick out a great gift without having to go through the
site and put together a coordinated package themselves," Bulebar
says..."
---J. Crew---
Unique Visitors: 949,914/mo.
Sales: $130 million/yr.
"...online sales for the 12 months that will end Feb. 28, 2003, are
projected to hit $130 million to $140 million, surpassing expected
catalog sales of $125 million to $130 million. If online sales reach
$140 million, the increase over the prior year's online sales will be
12%, up from $123 million..."
"..."The strongest thing we've found is showing a lot of images of our
products, placing our catalog images throughout the site," Towers
says. By extending catalog imagery to the site, including extensive
photographs of models in settings that show multiple products and
categories, JCrew.com is more effective at cross-selling from its
broad selections of apparel and accessories, he adds. "We're really
trying to assist the customer in making decisions," Towers says.
The company is also working on a new web site personalization program.
"We're moving forward with personalization so we can make one-to-one
recommendations," Towers says..."
"...To keep sales growing in all channels, the company has stepped up
e-mail marketing campaigns and run ads on Yahoo.com. "Their web site
has been very effective for J. Crew, but they have to realize, and I
think they do, that the catalog is still the primary driver of sales
to the web," says Ken Cassar, senior analyst with Jupiter Research
Inc. For the near future, J. Crew is looking into improving how it
monitors, analyzes and leverages information on customer behavior
across all channels. "We want to drive people to the channel that
works best for them," Towers says..."
---Lands' End---
Unique Visitors: 737,629/mo.
Sales: $300 million (last FY)
"...Lands' End, which appears on Internet Retailer's Best of the Web
for the fourth year in a row, a distinction it shares only with
Amazon, hasn't let up with its innovative, service-oriented ways. In
November, for instance, five months after coming under Sears's
umbrella, Lands' End took another step ahead of its competitors by
expanding its custom-fitting apparel service to include dress shirts
and tailored twill pants..."
"..."Going forward, the most important innovation for us will be
custom clothes," Bass says.
And no wonder. Available only online, the custom-fitting service has
proven a vital means of acquiring customers. Among the service's
users, 25% are new customers, the company says.
Lands' End is raising the bar of online apparel selling, and it shows
no sign of letting up. And with the ability to leverage Sears's supply
chain for sourcing products, it should strengthen its hand in
retailing, analysts say. "As long as Sears recognizes that and allows
Lands' End to do its own thing, it will continue doing the most for
the customer," KSA's Merritt says...."
Payment Processor: I4 Commerce Inc.'s Bill Me Later, Page Digital
Inc.'s Synaro
Undergear
Unique Visitors: 150,000/mo.
"...Sales at the men's underwear and workout apparel site will grow
15%-20% this year, on top of 30% growth last year..."
"...Undergear, which has had a web site since 1996, already gets half
of its sales from the web. That high proportion is partly the result
of having a base of customers who are prime Internet users..."
"...The high proportion of web sales is also the result of a strong
brand. The Undergear catalog has been in existence for 20 years and
half of the volume of the web site is sparked by the catalog.
Further testimony to the power of the site and the brand is that over
50% of web sales are to repeat customers. Undergear also drives
customers to the site through e-mail marketing, including newsletters,
as well as by an affiliate network. Search accounts for only about 10%
of sales.
Part of the appeal of Under-gear.com is its clean design. Shoppers are
presented on the home page with Underwear, Workout and Casual options,
further broken down by subcategories. All the information fits in a
single screen with no scrolling. Clicking an option takes the shopper
directly to quick loading shopping pages with thumbnails of products.
"It's a very sparse site, which is good for the image they are trying
to project," says Duif Calvin, a San Francisco-based retail analyst.
Calvin says Undergear's image is in direct contrast to sister brand
International Male, which is about fashion. "The Undergear audience is
about sports and fitness and the site is making a statement about
being a non-fashion site," she says. "The Undergear concept is an
interesting way of taking a successful category at International Male
and spinning it off for a different audience."..."
Internet Retailer's Best of the Web--The Top 50 Retailing Sites (
http://www.internetretailer.com/article.asp?id=8131 ) also listed the
top retailers in the mass market niche. Since they don't specialize in
clothes, I haven't summarized them here, but you can select the link
if you think it might be useful to you. The top mass merchants are
Buy.com, eBay, QVC, ReturnBuy, and Target.
********
You may also be interested in a market research study I found, called
The State of Retailing Online 5.0.
"...Shop.org's State of Retailing Online 5.0 research study, conducted
by the Boston Consulting Group with Forrester Research, provides
retailers selling online with a comprehensive look at key metrics and
industry trends. The Executive Summary report examines overall market
metrics and explores successful strategies for retailing in today's
environment where consumers and competitors increasingly embrace
multi-channel retailing. The Performance Benchmarks report takes a
detailed look at a range of performance metrics across nine
categories, and aggregates retailer responses in several key areas,
such as marketing effectiveness, CRM and multi-channel integration.
The two reports that comprise The State of Retailing Online 5.0 range
in cost from $595 to $2995 depending on Shop.org and NRF Membership
status..."
See http://www.shop.org/research/SRO5Benchmarks.html for additional
information and to order.
The next two links provide some general information on e-commerce and
retail.
How to stimulate innovation in online retailing
http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=7752
-Interview with Amazon.com and Land's End retailers on how they
innovate for online retailing.
How to measure success in online retailing (the mother of all metrics)
http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=7753
-Describes sales as the ultimate measure of e-commerce success
***SMS and Mobile Commerce (m-commerce)***
I looked for SMS and Mobile commerce as it is used in the retail
market. I found a few examples of how retailers are using mobile
devices to market to consumers or to make things easier on the
consumer. I was unable to find examples of specific fashion retail
stores using SMS.
Fashion Marketing Requires Latest Trends
http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/features/091102.asp
-Use of SMS to draw customers to an online fashion magazine
A test of web-based cell phone payment at the point of sale
http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=8161
-Use of SMS to pay for items at a retail deli
Web-enabled cell phones are growing, but their Internet usage is not
http://www.internetretailer.com/dailynews.asp?id=6407
-Statistics and issues with m-commerce
M-Commerce Alternatives
http://www.cconvergence.com/article/printableArticle?doc_id=CTM20010425S0004
-Describes services that delivers messages from bricks and mortar
stores to potential customers
************
I hope this provides the information you were looking for. If you have
any questions, please ask for clarification before rating this answer.
Thanks,
tj-ga
Search terms:
+SMS +retail +fashion
+m-commerce +retail +fashion |
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